Vacation Recap

I still have today to finish things up, but I also have a bit of housework and just general getting things ready to go back to work, so not sure how much stitching or fun things I'll get done today. We had a series of thunderstorms go through earlier and we've been losing power for 15 or so minutes each hour since (thank goodness for laptops with batteries). Our electric company is usually very good about keeping the power on, so something fairly major happened somewhere in the system.

So what did I accomplish during my vacation besides wishing that I could somehow really take advantage of the early retirement opportunity (50 years old with at least 20 years of service) that they've been talking about sleeping past 4:00 each morning and feeling rested each day? Well, I had my first and second finishes for 2011. I started With they Needle & Thread's Birds of a Feather Mystery:



With thy Needle & Thread
Birds of a Feather Mystery Sampler
35-county Weeks Dye Works Confederate Gray
Recommended Weeks Dye Works threads

 

I'm hoping to finish stitching the top section today if the power will cooperate as I'm still not sure, even after counting three times, that I've got the stitch count correct on the outer border. Thanks to DMIL for the birthday gift that allowed me to sign up for this one!!

I exercised for 45 minutes each day, started to straighten the basement (finishing *that* task will take years weeks months), did all the mending, planted up the pots on the deck, pulled out the trusty glue gun and burned the heck out of my fingers fixed several things; and hung pictures. There were a couple of things that I didn't get to (it was too hot to spend much time outside doing the weeding in the drive), but all in all, I'm very pleased, especially since I didn't really expect to finish even a quarter of the list.

Back to work tomorrow. I am travelling in a couple of weeks, a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I'm taking two weeks off in July (I haven't taken two weeks off during the summer in better than 10 years) for my family reunion and just relaxing, so there are things to look forward to. Is it a sad statement on my job that I'm more looking forward to not being there than being there?